Today I was reminded that I made a pledge a month ago with Time to Change, to help change the stigma about mental health. I pledged to talk about my experience more. So here’s a blog I read today, ‘Depression Does not define you’, followed by my response to that.

…”Last week was Depression Awareness Week and to raise awareness myself I’ve decided to write a blog post about it. It shouldn’t just be one week that everyone talks about depression it should be every day because if we talk about mental health a lot more we can tackle the stigma in a more effective way. People choose not to talk about depression because of the lack of understanding and compassion in society today. Depression doesn’t define who you are as a person.

They ask “Are you okay?” and the answer is always “I’m fine” because you don’t want everyone to think that you’re weak.

So imagine this and put yourself in someone suffering from depression’s shoes.”Read more

Just started reading 'Germinal 'by Emile Zola, inspired by watching a film about artist Cezanne and Zola, who were friends. Germinal is about mining and poverty. It's written in what Zola called a Naturalistic style, it's very realistic! I skipped the long introduction, but expect to find out more about Zola's life and politics as I read on.Coming from Blantyre, a mining village in Lanarkshire, reading this has made me remember that my dad and two grandfathers were miners, also my step-Grandad, Wattie who helped to bring me up. I had a massive input from him ; he was a communist. The telling of this tale has made me actually go into the mine and scrunch myself into a ball, hunkering down under the walls to chip out some coal.It's fairly harrowing.So, from this,I wrote a poem today:

Buried beneath the earth,without a breath of fresh air,miners coal-tapping.

Fearing the world will fallon their heads suffocatingminers fighting for all.

Squatting; back-breaking work,no other choice for a living.Compressed; lung-black; stuck.

My father and grandfathers sat thereEnduring. Direst of dire.Nae wonder they were dour.

Their only fire, a lamp.no dry places, all were damp.

And, empty of all uplift,-but walking out of there,believing heaven waits.